Derailed
by foghorn
Summary: Post DH. ONESHOT. Ginny is organizing and finds a photo she wasn't prepared to see. Please Read and Review.


**A/N:** This is a oneshot written as part of backstory for a game and is not entirely DH canon. It was a simple plot bunny that has been nagging me for a little while and I needed to get down. Please don't flame, but reviews are welcome and encouraged.

**Disclaimer: **Ginny Weasley and the universe she lives in are property of J.K. Rowling and I am but an admirer of her work. I do not own anything.

She shouldn't have bothered with that box. The fact that she'd tripped over it earlier that morning should've been enough to keep her away from it. She couldn't quite remember what had been packed in there, though and her curiosity had gotten the better of her. What was that saying about the blasted cat?

It hadn't been all bad. The knickknacks on the top were things she'd been looking for. The picture of her Mum and Dad at their wedding that she had always liked from the Burrow. Not to mention the newspaper clippings from her first Harpy match (They lost, but it was something to be able to see her name in the Prophet Sports section), and a few masterpieces by her nephew and her goddaughter. All of these were placed around her new(ish) living room so she could show them off to her guests…if and when she had any.

It had been four months in this flat and she felt like it was still unfamiliar to her. Mostly due to the fact that she was constantly at practice or traveling with her team and this had been the first completely free day in ages. That is, of course, what started this whole cleaning bit. But it was also because it was the first time she was living on her own. It was strange collapsing into her bed at night without saying goodnight to anyone. It was nearly unsettling waking up to complete silence. Of course, she was beginning to enjoy her alone time, but there was always that feeling of something missing that she couldn't quite shake.

And then in one moment, one stupid, ripped and crumpled photograph explained it all too well and she was left a mess in the middle of her room trying her damnedest to just get a grip on herself. It was completely absurd for her to get like this over this particular photo. There were others in the box that should've been more upsetting. Faces smiling and waving back at her, unaware of their impending doom. Not knowing that those would be some of the last pictures of themselves. That months after the flash of the camera, they'd be faced with another flash, but the later was not met with a smile and a fit of giggles.

Those pictures should've hurt more. Not the one that she couldn't take her eyes off of. Not the one that she was sure she'd burned somewhere along the way in a fit of rage. That one shouldn't have affected her at all. She was supposed to have gotten past all of that. It had been nearly a year and she should've been over it. She should've forgotten all about that.

And yet, her eyes stayed fixed on the black and white memory of years gone by. The one shred that held the two lives together. The one piece of remaining evidence that at one point before she lost so many people who meant more to her than she could ever put into words, she'd been happy; really, truly, and sickeningly happy.

It was a muggle photo, though she knew the photographer had mastered the art of magical developing long before this had been taken. It was better in still-life though. Because that's what she remembered feeling in that moment. Like the world had stopped turning and everything around them had slipped away. Nothing mattered in that moment and it felt like nothing else would ever matter again. Nothing could possibly spoil what was in that picture…Or at least that's what she had thought.

She still couldn't understand it. Nearly a year and she couldn't figure out what had happened to make him leave without so much as a goodbye. She thought…She didn't know what she thought but she sure as hell wasn't prepared for what happened. The war was over. It was supposed to go back to how it was meant to be. It wasn't supposed to end like this. That's not the way that fairytales went. The prince and the princess were supposed to end up together. But how could that happen when the prince decides to take off without a word of where he's going and no mention of when he was coming back? Where was her white horse? Where was her castle? Where was her happy freaking ever after?


End file.
